A Shot In the Dark: The Return of DooM

2015-06-27

Finally, after so much build up. After so many hits and misses. After so much anticipation for another great DooM game. Finally there is hope out in the distance. There is a chance for redemption. There is a long awaited shot heard in the monster filled dark. DooM has finally been ressureccted once again. Let us hope that within the evil behind its orgins there will be great game play and hopes for the game that people have been waiting for.

The Ancient Evil Survives

Bethesda has released a trailer teasing a newly remodeled revant enemy and a shotgun (super shotgun) reload animation. If this is any indication that id has been given the green light to push their graphics engine (id Tech 6) to the limit. This is the a similar graphics engine that was used in games such as Rage (a sleeper game that seems like it was a project game but is actually decent) Wolfenstein:The New Order/Old Blood and many other games that I am looking forward to trying out when they do hit the market. My only worry is that we have gone from this…

To this…

To this…

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVaWl1GtDHU}

Don’t get me wrong, the game play looks great and the engine is amazing. It just looks like a mix of Quake 3 Arena meets Bulletstorm. Quake is a great game and I loved the challenges that it presented in its game play but I did not like Bulletstorm. It seemed too repetitive, you had to chain combos in order to even make the gameplay worth anything and I did not like having to find something to make a combo happen with.

Where does the story lie?

So after seeing all of this new footage and eye candy, where does the story lie? After seeing some “Leaked” footage of what the game could be (which I feel isn’t going to be included in the actual game itself.) my interest is only peaked even farther? Will we continue to see the evil UAC (Union Aerospace Corp) build and strip away what is left of their corporate soul as they build portals to hell? Will this be new take on a classic storyline? Or will this be something new? Something that we have never seen before? No matter what happens I know that I am interested in seeing the outcome of id softwares brainstorming. What I do worry about though is that some of the enemies in the E3 trailer looked reminiscent of the DooM 3 design and while some of those characters we’re well designed. Others were not that impactful. I especially worry about the look of the Pinky/specter demon. Evolving something into a frightening, nightmare fuel is one thing. But, and this was a side view, what I saw was kind of questionable. It looked like a massive creature with a dinosaur like tail…I’m fightinng demons, not Barney. Show me something that is going to make me afraid. The older DooMs had more tricks and traps and kept you on the look out for enemies as they popped up.

It seems that in some respect FPS games have lost that type of mentality and are quick to throw a bunch of enemies at you without any planning or thought towards how they are going to attack you. In a game like Wolfenstein that tends to work out great, you are at war with Nazi Germany and there are many soldiers that are looking to claim your head for the evil Reich. But for me DooM, the older ones, were about thrills and scares. I will never forget walking into a room full of darkness. A single piece of green armor in the center being spotlighted, begging you to come and pick it up and upon doing so, a trap springs and out comes swarms of mobs. Enemies all over the place that will now hunt you down until you are no longer living.

Damned if your DooM

One thing that should worry old school gamers is the Call of Duty trend. It is still out there, looming, waiting and ready to challenge any good game that should try to attempt to take the throne of best FPS brand. DooM used to be up top on that food chain, then Quake was the boss and so on and so forth. Now it feels as if DooM is trying to be the next CoD stopper. The idea of fatalities came from a mod for the original called Brutal DooM which was actually a great mod that became very popular in the DooM community. But I’m afraid fatalities won’t be enough to put this game back up top. There is the vast platforming effort that has been added into the game, which accents the adventuring, but not enough to make you want to give up on a more poplar game. The guns have been improved and look very stylish, but after a while it seems that the action will end up getting stale. Granted this is just taken from the E3 demo, which I hope won’t be the FIRST LEVEL in the game (I’m looking dead at your guilty ass Titan Fall!! That’s why I didn’t buy you!) but if it’s any indication of what the game will be like I pray that they make it worth the wait and the money.

DooM if your Damned

All that being said. It does look like a promising game. It seems like a reboot that the series badly needed. No more flashlight monster searches. No more modding something that should have been in the game in the first place and I hope (and pray) that there will be no pointless collecting of PDA data. Wealthy company off in the future and they are using PDA’s still? WTF? The graphics engine looks like it’s ready to pump out one mother of a bad game and I really am looking forward to see how they further utilize it in the game’s content. I did like the effects on the BFG and the new machine gun? Whatever it is, it’s spitting out hot death and destruction and my body is ready! And even though I did downplay how there are fatalities in this game they are brutal. Nothing says I’m serious like putting a zombies own boot in its own face. The nostalgic door sounds even make a return. I just wish they would modernize the old school armor and make it look newer. Multiplayer looks like it will be interesting too. There seems to be a power up that lets you become the Revanent. A rocket launching, jet packing SOB who takes none and gives none back. Next year I will be waiting for this gem.